If you work with websites, graphics or digital products, you will regularly see color values written as HEX, RGB or HSL. These formats may look technical at first, but each one is simply a different way of describing a digital color.
What is a HEX color?
A HEX color normally starts with a hash symbol followed by six hexadecimal characters. The six characters represent red, green and blue channel values. For example, #000000 represents black and #FFFFFF represents white.
What is RGB?
RGB stands for red, green and blue. Each channel is usually represented on a scale from 0 to 255. RGB is useful when you want to understand the contribution of each primary light channel.
What is HSL?
HSL stands for hue, saturation and lightness. Hue identifies the basic color family, saturation controls intensity, and lightness controls how light or dark the color appears. HSL can be convenient when adjusting a palette while keeping the general hue consistent.
Which format should you use?
For CSS, HEX and RGB are both common. HSL can be useful when you are designing a palette and want to adjust lightness or saturation systematically. The best choice depends on your workflow and the tools you are using.
Use a color picker to identify real colors
Instead of guessing a color from a screenshot or photograph, upload the image to the USCart Color Picker and sample the area you need. You can then copy the value into your design workflow.
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